Longtime Deputy City Manager Debra Collins is retiring at the end of this week after nearly 20 years working for the city.
Collins’ 19-year career in the City of Alexandria included helping to kickstart ACT for Alexandria and the consolidation of city services in the West End.
A number of Del Ray residents locked arms around an oak tree slated for removal at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Del Ray on Wednesday, only days after City Council approved a plan to renovate the park.
Gisele McAuliffe, a 30-year Del Ray resident, says that the city’s approved plan to renovate the park will come at too great a cost — the removal of 40 trees. The age of the trees is in dispute, as the city says the oldest trees on the property were planted in the 1940s, while McAuliffe and her friends measured the trees and claim they are upward of 100 years old.
Tropical Smoothie Cafe could soon be coming to Alexandria’s West End.
Owner Oubab Khalil filed a special use permit (SUP) on June 12 to run the restaurant at the space at 424 S. Pickett Street. The final day for public comments is July 6 before it goes to the Planning Commission and then City Council.
The Alexandria City Council on Tuesday will consider naming a one-acre park in Old Town after a local champion of parks, Judy Guse-Noritake.
The open space, a few blocks from the Braddock Road Metro station at 600 N. Henry Street, is currently named Braddock Interim Park. After the city acquired the land in 2010, it developed the property as part of the Braddock Metro Neighborhood Plan with gathering areas, a ping pong table, a bocce ball court, horseshoe pits and seating.
It’s going to be a busy summer in Alexandria.
On Tuesday, City Council will consider a waiver to Alexandria’s special event policy to allow for events with more than 500 people to occur on consecutive weekends throughout the summer.
The city is a victim of its own bureaucracy when it comes to parks, but a new zoning change (docket item 8) essentially lets the city get out of its own way to make park improvements.
A staff report said that the city is currently hamstrung by requirements that virtually any type of improvement or change at a park must go through the city’s special use permits (SUP), a lengthy process that involves public and city leadership hearings and review.
Updated at 3:30 p.m. on May 24 — The estimated costs of the total infrastructure improvements at the former Landmark Mall site have ballooned 40% since City Council signed off on the project in 2021, forcing the city to get creative with its financing.
Tonight (Tuesday), the City Council will vote on directing City Manager Jim Parajon to execute an agreement between the city, Landmark Land Holdings (a joint venture between Foulger-Pratt, The Howard Hughes Corp. and Seritage Growth Properties.) and Inova Healthcare Services to address the $62 million shortfall.
About 50 people gathered in Del Ray early Thursday evening to decry increased development and to hear about a recent “endangered” designation within the neighborhood.
Preservation Virginia recently designated The Town of Potomac — once an independent and racist town and now a sub-neighborhood within Del Ray — in its annual list of endangered historic sites. The Town of Potomac was created in 1908 as a white-only community in Arlington County. It was annexed into the Alexandria in 1930, after which it “ceased to exist,” according to the city.
Audrey Davis, executive director of the Alexandria Black History Museum (902 Wythe Street), has been tapped to lead the city’s new African American History division of the Office of Historic Alexandria (OHA).
Davis has been a leader in the city’s efforts to preserve Black history in Alexandria, starting as a part-time curator with the city in 1993. The city has made significant strides in recent years to better present the city’s Black history, from the opening of the Freedom House Museum to guided tours of the Parker-Gray neighborhood.
Good Friday morning, Alexandria!
More gunfire was reported near the Braddock Road Metro station yesterday afternoon, prompting the Alexandria Police Department to tweet that it’s “determined” to solve recent crime issues.
After a request from the Del Ray Citizens Association, Alexandria is leaning toward extending a public comment period by two months after it releases its controversial zoning for housing plan later this year.
The massive plan would upend a number of zoning ordinances. One of them is a bonus height amendment that would incentivize developers to add affordable housing to projects in exchange for two additional stories of construction in areas where height limits are 45 feet or more.
